Virgin

“ To the most holy and undivided Trinity, to the manhood of our crucified Lord Jesus Christ, to the fruitful virginity of the most blessed and glorious Mary, ever a virgin, to the entire assembly of the saints, be ascribed everlasting praise, honor, power, and glory, by every creature ”

“ Most holy Virgin, I believe and confess thy most holy and immaculate care of man, pure and without stain. O most pure Virgin, through thy virginal purity, thy immaculate conception, thy glorious quality of Mother of God, obtain for me of thy dear Son, humility, charity, great purity of heart, of body and of mind, holy perseverance in my cherished relations, the gift of prayer, a holy life and a happy death. ”

“ While life lasts, the virgin maid will lure the normal lover, common sense and cold facts notwithstanding. What the poet sang and the amorous swain coveted in those by-gone times of pomp and paganism, in the days of chivalry, and even in that dreary early Victorian era, will be sung and coveted centuries hence. Science, new discoveries, new theories, new ideals, new conditions, cannot oust human nature, our undeniable birthright. The sanctity and value of virginity are traditions ”

“ Remember both of you that you are the parents of a consecrated virgin, and that your example will teach her more than your precepts. Flowers are quick to fade and a baleful wind soon withers the violet, the lily, and the crocus. Let her never appear in public unless accompanied by you. Let her never visit a church or a martyr’s shrine unless with her mother. Let no young man greet her with smiles; no dandy with curled hair pay compliments to her. If our little virgin goes to keep solemn eves and all-night vigils, let her not stir a hair’s breadth from her mother’s side. ”

“ Believe me, if I were free to do your bidding, gladly would I make you happy, but a voice from the gods has spoken, has commanded that I remain a virgin, that I devote my life to deeds of mercy. When heaven itself has commanded, what can even a princess do but listen to that power which rules the earth? ”

“ Wherefore what shall we say? is there any thought which a virgin of God may truly have, by reason of which she dare not to set herself before a faithful woman, not only a widow, but even married? I say not a reprobate virgin; for who knows not that an obedient woman is to be set before a disobedient virgin? ”

“ From Christmas until Candlemas
Ant. When Thou wert wondrously born of a virgin, then were the Scriptures fulfilled. Thou earnest down like the rain upon the fleece, that Thou mightest save mankind. We praise Thee, our God. ”

“ That most glorious, pure, chaste virgin, that bare the Son of God that should redeem all mankind. How will her chaste and pure virginity receive me that am a sinner, and suffer me to come in her presence, and put a supplication to her most high, glorious, and excellent Prince, that have so grievously offended her blessed Son and her. Will she not abhor, nor disdain to look on me that am of all sinners the most horrible and abominable, and have so done that I cannot, without her most abundant grace, find a mean how to make aseth. ”

“ A virgin bore Him Whom this world cannot contain or support. He, born of the womb of Mary, preserved inviolate her chastity, and the seal of her virginity. Therefore Christ found in the Virgin what He would take for His own, what the Lord of all would assume to Himself. By the woman and the man our flesh was cast out of Paradise, by the Virgin it was re-united to God. ”

“ But this universal church is a virgin, the bride of Christ—who is a virgin—from whom as from a true mother we are spiritually born. A virgin, I say, all beautiful and in whom there is no spot [Cant. 4:7.] ”

“ O sinless one, by accepting your embraces my virginity will be sullied. O best of Brahmanas, my virginity being sullied, how shall I, O Rishi, be able to return home? Indeed, I shall not then be able to bear life. Reflecting upon all this, O illustrious one, do that which should be done.' That best of Rishis, gratified with all she said, replied, "Thou shall remain a virgin even if thou grantest my wish. And, O timid one, O beauteous lady, solicit the boon that thou desirest. ”

“ Still setting virginity before marriage, he speaks of the beauty of their spouse, and of the gifts wherewith He adorns them, and applies to these points certain verses of the Song of Songs.
32. You have heard, O parents, in what virtues and pursuits you ought to train your daughters, that you may possess those by whose merits your faults may be redeemed. The virgin is an offering for her mother, by whose daily sacrifice the divine power is appeased. A virgin is the inseparable pledge of her parents, who neither troubles them for a dowry, nor forsakes them, nor injures them in word or deed. ”

“ Here, in all probability, are the most powerful reasons for the value placed on virginity; each reason, too, is highly practical. Who among us truly wants to share his most treasured possession? And the shy charm of virginity 'neath the attack of the amorous lover is as undeniable as it is indescribable. ”

“ But sure it does unscrew a virgin's heart,
To hear of love, and never feel his dart.'
'Madam, forsooth,' quoth Lady Arda, 'I
Ne'er found such comfort i' th' innupted life,
Nor think the blessings of virginity
Can equal the contentments of a wife. ”

“ Even so the Church also is called by many names. She is called a virgin, albeit formerly she was an harlot: for this is the miracle wrought by the Bridegroom, that He took her who was an harlot and hath made her a virgin. Oh! what a new and strange event! With us marriage destroys virginity, but with God marriage hath restored it. With us she who is a virgin, when married, is a virgin no longer: with Christ she who is an harlot, when married, becomes a virgin. ”

“ Perhaps one can really love none but a virgin—a virgin in body and in mind—a fragile bud that has never been caressed as yet by any zephyr and whose carefully hidden breast has neither received the drop of rain nor the pearl of dew ”

“ Let the virgins hear that not by that one point is virginity defined; for she that is careful about the things of the world cannot be a virgin, nor seemly. Thus, when he said, “There is difference between a wife and a virgin,” he added this as the difference, and that wherein they are distinguished from each other. And laying down the definition of a virgin and her that is not a virgin, he names, not marriage nor continence but leisure from engagements and multiplicity of engagements. For the evil is not in the cohabitation, but in the impediment to the strictness of life. ”

“ To show that virginity is natural while wedlock only follows guilt, what is born of wedlock is virgin flesh, and it gives back in fruit what in root it has lost. “There shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a flower shall grow out of his roots.” ”

“ Therefore, beloved virgins, brides and daughters of Christ, keep unspotted for Him your virginity, which is the guarding of the will from carnal taint in man or in woman who, like Christ and the Virgin, have never yielded to bodily passion. ”

“ Virginity being blown down, man will quicklier be blown up; marry, in blowing him down again, with the breach yourselves made, you lose your city. It is not politic in the commonwealth of nature to preserve virginity. Loss of virginity is rational increase, and there was never virgin got till virginity was first lost. That you were made of is metal to make virgins. Virginity, by being once lost, may be ten times found; by being ever kept, it is ever lost. ’Tis too cold a companion. Away with it!
HELENA.
I will stand for’t a little, though therefore I die a virgin.
PAROLLES.
There’s little can be said in’t; ”

“ To us moderns, blessed (or cursed) with a smattering of science, woman is virginal just as long as we know or believe her to be, physical qualities notwithstanding. By the poet of the past, the romanticist, the mediæval lover, and the ignorant, physical as well as spiritual proofs were probably required or expected. To them, virginity was something tangible ”

“ He sent her away for two months: and she departed, she and her companions, and mourned her virginity on the mountains. 39 It happened at the end of two months, that she returned to her father, who did with her according to his vow which he had vowed: and she was a virgin. ”

“ Art thou loosed from a wife? seek not a wife.
7:28 But and if thou marry, thou hast not sinned; and if a virgin marry, she hath not sinned. Nevertheless such shall have trouble in the flesh: but I spare you. ”

“ Whosoever knoweth the Lord heareth us; and every one who is not of God heareth not us. He who desires truly to keep sanctity heareth us; and the virgin who truly desires to keep virginity heareth us; but she who does not truly desire to keep virginity doth not hear us. ”

“ One point, however, must be determined beforehand, that the name virgin is given to a woman who voluntarily devotes herself to the Lord, renounces marriage, and embraces a life of holiness. And we admit professions dating from the age of full intelligence. ”

“ All people have regarded virginity as something sacred, and God has so honored it that he willed that his son be born of a virgin, fecundated, however, by the Holy Ghost. Still, it appears problematical whether the Virgin Mary, complete virgin that she was, did not have the same pleasure as those who are not virgins, when she received the divine annunciation. ”

“ His virginity is, or should be, as glorious and sacred a possession to a youth as to a maiden; to be guarded jealously; to be given only at the call of love, to one who loves him—be it comrade, mistress, or wife—and whom he can love in return. ”

“ No virgin, therefore, unless they be in everything as Christ, and as those “who are Christs,” [2] can be saved. For every virgin who is in God is holy in her body and in her spirit, and is constant in the service of her Lord, not turning away from it any whither, but waiting upon Him always in purity and holiness in the Spirit of God, being “solicitous how she may please her Lord,” [3] by living purely and without stain, and solicitous to be pleasing before Him in every thing. ”

“ This way was to find a virgin, at once of great beauty and unquestioned virtue, and to conduct her to the unicorn’s haunts in the greenwood. Immediately the animal, tame only in the presence of a pure virgin, would come and lay its head gently and fearlessly in her lap ”

“ She is ever ready to hear the prayers of virgins, and you I count not a widow, but a virgin. That when only a child you consented to marry, was mere deference to the bidding of your parents and the future of your race ”

“ And a King and a Bridegroom in Heaven! To be counted worthy also to go before Him with torches, and to be near Him, and to be ever with Him, what ought we not to do? What should we not perform? What should we not endure? I entreat you, let us conceive some desire for those blessings, let us long for that Bridegroom, let us be virgins as to the true Virginity. For the Lord seeks after the virginity of the soul. ”

“ Chapter V.—The Reward of Virginity.
These, O fair virgins, are the orgies of our mysteries; these the mystic rites of those who are initiated in virginity; these the “undefiled rewards” [1] of the conflict of virginity. I am betrothed to the Word, and receive as a reward the eternal crown of immortality and riches from the Father; and I triumph in eternity, crowned with the bright and unfading flowers of wisdom. I am one in the choir with Christ dispensing His rewards in heaven, around the unbeginning and never-ending King. ”

“ When thou begins to finde and know not merely that He was conceived in the womb of a virgin, but that thou art that virgin and that He is more truly and spiritually, and yet as really, conceived in thy heart so that thou feelest the Babe beginning to be conceived in thee by the power of the Holy Ghost and the Most High overshadowing thee; when thou feelest Jesus Christ stirring to be born and brought forth in thee ”

“ Wine and women will make men of understanding to fall away! 1 Cor. vii. 4. Hence Paul teaches temperance even in marriage; for he who commits excess therein is, as it were, an adulterer, and violates the Apostolical law.
33. But how can I express the greatness of the grace of virginity, which was counted worthy to be chosen by Christ, to be the bodily temple of God, wherein dwelt, as we read, Col. ii. 9. the fulness of the Godhead bodily! A virgin conceived the Saviour of the world, a virgin brought forth the Life of the universe. ”

“ This feeble body I had determined to preserve in all purity, and to present my virginity as an offering to Jesus Christ. Alas, and woe is me! that I am in such a fashion forsaken as to be unable to fulfil what I had resolved upon! Oh, day which never should have dawned upon me! Behold me severed from the heavenly spouse who had promised me paradise for a marriage portion, and become the bride of a mortal man, whilst that head which should have been crowned with the roses of immortality, is decked, or rather disfigured, with roses which already begin to wither. ”

“ To dream of a virgin, denotes that you will have comparative luck in your speculations. For a married woman to dream that she is a virgin, foretells that she will suffer remorse over her past, and the future will hold no promise of better things. ”

“ For as the putrid humours and matter of flesh, and all those things which corrupt it, are driven out by salt, in the same manner all the irrational appetites of a virgin are banished from the body by divine teaching. ”